Requiem: Aurora Resonant Book Three (Aurora Rhapsody 9) Page 28

  Droplets of blood floated into view inside Harper’s helmet. The glass she’d been scraped by had cut her face. Droplets weren’t gushes, however, which made the cut the least of her concerns.

  Captain Harper (Machim MP): “AFS Reconnaissance Vessel R6-S, requesting a pickup at my beacon’s location.”

  Commander Dorosh (AFS R6-S)(Machim MP): “Solid copy, Captain. ETA fifty seconds.”

  Brigadier Jenner (Machim MP): “You had me worried there. Hang tight.”

  Captain Harper (Machim MP): “ ‘Hang tight’? Really, sir?”

  Brigadier Jenner (Machim MP): “I’ll apologize when I see you, Captain.”

  She rolled her eyes, then blinked frantically until she’d excised a droplet of blood that had drifted into the crease of her left eye.

  Brook, where are you? Are you hurt?

  She smiled. Morgan had attached herself to Ashonye’s fleet, so she’d probably been eavesdropping and heard the pickup request.

  I’m fine. You should get your ass to that battlecruiser. See to it the Machim Primor doesn’t get away.

  Goddammit. Okay, okay, but if you’re lying and are in trouble, I’m going to be pissed.

  Harper breathed in carefully; she needed to remember to conserve her limited oxygen. In the distance, beyond the Annex, explosions and other bursts of light marked the joining of the battle between Ashonye’s fleet and a host of Machim warships. Too far away to catch the battlecruiser if it left the Annex, but maybe Morgan could get there first.

  Closer to her location, the upper section of the Annex crumpled and broke apart. The disintegration didn’t continue beyond that point, however. They must have quarantine doors that blocked off the upper section to prevent a catastrophic failure.

  She breathed out.

  The planet below harbored a few lit areas here and there, but it remained largely pitched into darkness. The Dyson ring destruction had dealt them a heavy blow. The Machim Primor must be so pissed…and now, more pissed.

  She shivered. Cold seeped through the layers of her gear and skin into her blood and bones. Heavy tactical gear wasn’t an environment suit, and the protection it provided against the ravages of space was limited.

  Commander Lekkas (AFS MA-Primary)(Machim MP/M2): “I’m firing on this fucking battlecruiser with everything I’ve got, but what I don’t have are any more negative energy bombs. A little help? Anyone?”

  Commodore Yonai (EAS Copenhagen)(Machim MP/M2): “In range of target in six seconds.”

  Commander Lekkas (MA-Primary)(Machim MP/M2): “Fucking motherfucker!”

  Silence on all channels, for a lengthy second.

  Mia Requelme (Machim MP/M2): “The battlecruiser activated the superluminal drive as soon as it was clear of the Annex. It’s gone.”

  Dammit!

  Brigadier Jenner (Machim MP/M2): “Acknowledged.”

  Another breath in. Could she still feel her legs? She wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. The recon vessel would be here in another few seconds.

  Well, that’s that. Brook, tell me where you are.

  Without contemplating the wisdom of it too deeply, she sent her beacon info to Morgan. Because she was alone, and possibly scared.

  You’re hurt—you’re bleeding. God, you look so cold!

  She instinctively peered around her, but there was no ship. Only Morgan’s consciousness was here.

  I am cold. But rescue’s on the way. I’ll be fine.

  I wish I could touch you, gather you up in my arms and spirit you away to safety.

  If she’d had enough air left, she would have laughed at the picture that sprang to mind.

  That’s a shockingly romantic notion, but under all your attitude you’re a skinny waif. In this gear I’m too heavy for you to carry.

  I’d find a way.

  She gazed out at the stars and the planet and the Annex and the battle and the woman who wasn’t there as her vision began to darken.

  I bet you would….

  “Primor on the bridge!”

  Casmir elasson-Machim spun around in surprise, then belatedly snapped to attention at the sight of, yes, his Primor barreling down the bridge toward him. “Sir.”

  “Depart, now.”

  “Sir?”

  “Depart the Annex this instant.”

  “Navigation, request clearance to depart.” He studied the Primor warily. The man had appeared frazzled and distracted when he’d summarily demoted Casmir off his Imperium and to captain of a battlecruiser following the loss at Chalmun Station Asteroid. Now, he closely resembled a madman. His uniform was stained with blood and torn at the shoulder; his skin shone from sweat, and his hair couldn’t be more unkempt if he’d just risen from sleep.

  Most of those characteristics could be explained away by the ongoing attack on the Annex, but the attack couldn’t explain the madman’s taint animating his eyes. Pupils dilated, focus darting to and fro. The man who never lost a speck of composure had now lost virtually all of it.

  But the compulsion toward obedience was wired into Casmir’s very DNA, and he remained at attention. “Destination, sir?”

  “Away from here!”

  “Yes, sir. Navigation, set a course for MW Sector 59—”

  “No, wait. We need to go to Taygeta.”

  The tactical officer cleared his throat. “Sirs, a hostile engagement with enemy forces is in progress eight megameters from the Annex. Do we not wish to assist our forces in defeating the enemy?”

  The Primor motioned in the tactical officer’s general direction. “Ignore it. Neither the battle nor the Annex matter. They were after me, and they know I’m now out of their reach—or I will be once we depart.”

  Casmir discreetly waved off the tactical officer before turning squarely to the Primor. “Yes, sir. The Experimental Weaponry Testing Facility?” It was the only reason anyone went to Taygeta.

  “Correct.” A glint of fervor grew in his madman eyes. “I have a plan.”

  A plan for what? But Casmir simply nodded. “Yes, sir. Navigation, proceed as directed. Transition to superluminal as soon as we clear the safety perimeter, before the enemy has the opportunity to target us. Sir, are you injured? Do you need to visit Medical, or have a Curative Unit attend to you?”

  The hull shuddered from the impact of weapons fire. The Primor glared at the navigation officer.

  “Seven seconds to superluminal, sir!”

  “Good.” The Primor returned his glare to Casmir. “Why would I need any such thing?”

  “Well, sir…the blood.” He pointed to the Primor’s chest, though pointing to nearly any location on the Primor’s person would have sufficed.

  The Primor frowned. “I doubt it’s mine. But I do need a shower and a laundered uniform. I’ll be in your quarters—which is to say, my quarters.”

  Casmir watched the Primor swagger off the bridge while dragging both hands through his hair, which did nothing to calm it. Was calming it even the intent?

  The floor vibrated beneath his feet as the superluminal engine engaged and they left the Annex, as well as the battle, behind.

  Quiet returned to the bridge, and Casmir wondered what he should do next. The soothing whispers in his mind insisted that all was well, that the Primor knew best as always. But no matter how loud and insistent they grew, they could not cancel out the reality he saw with own eyes.

  All wasn’t anywhere close to well.

  35

  MELETO

  EREVNA HOMEWORLD

  MILKY WAY SECTOR 62

  * * *

  “LOGIEL ELA-EREVNA IS HERE to see you, Primor.”

  The Erevna Primor did not turn from her scrutiny of streaming data overlaid upon a wall of quarantined chemical and pseudo-biological mixtures. “Yes, Logiel, I received the Inquisitor’s entreaty on your behalf.”

  Logiel nodded at the Vigil guard, who retreated out of the room, taking her response as a form of assent and his nod as a form of dismissal.

  “And?”

  “I too
k it under advisement, but intentions and efforts matter far less than results, and the result of your and the Inquisitor’s stunt is that I have lost an important lab and important test subjects. An in-person appeal for mercy will not change this reality, nor will it endear you further to me.”

  Logiel crossed half the length of the room. “I don’t dare to presume it will, Primor. Everyone knows even the smallest of your piques last a minimum of forty days and must be allowed to run its course.”

  The stance of her shoulders shifted. After a beat she glanced back at him. “Pardon me?”

  “I’m only stating a logical, unbiased conclusion based on observational evidence, Primor.”

  Once he’d worked out the kinks of the integral buffering procedure on Inquisitor Nyx, he’d programmed a drone to assist him in performing the procedure on himself. After all, a scientist shouldn’t be influenced by external factors, particularly those they couldn’t consciously perceive.

  In the days since he’d completed the procedure, he’d gradually come to understand the egregious extent to which the integral—the will of his Primor—had been doing precisely that. It went beyond shaping his inclinations and adjusting his judgment to warping his very mind. The members of the Erevna Dynasty believed themselves scientists, but in truth there was only one scientist; the rest of them were lab rats in her maze.

  Now, standing here face-to-face with her, he just couldn’t help himself. He should make an effort to act his proper part, but the urge to goad her, untempered as it was by any integral, proved impossible to resist.

  “You know, overwrought grudges are an uncharacteristically emotional behavior from someone who’s supposed to represent the pinnacle of cold, logical discernment in all matters.”

  “You are learning the wrong lessons from your purgatory, Logiel. Insult me again and I will render your body nonfunctional then demote you all the way to asi for your impudence.”

  “Will you?”

  “How dare—”

  Her tirade-in-the-making was cut short by the guard bursting back into the room. “Primor! We have reports of explosions at the regenesis lab on the Castor #2 Orbital, as well as of a security breach of the grounds by combat forces.”

  They blew up one of her regenesis labs? Were they—the anarchs, the Humans, whoever—intending on blowing up them all? How interesting. Perhaps his petulant act of rebellion would prove to be more effective than he’d anticipated.

  “What grounds?”

  The guard frowned. “Uh, these grounds, Primor. Here. Your compound.”

  The Primor scowled and began to pace in a tight circle. “Maximum security alert, obviously. Lock me in here and make certain they don’t make it through that door. Understand?”

  “Our security is moving to intercept the attackers, but—”

  “Understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ll guard this door with our lives.”

  “And with your weapons, please.”

  “Y-yes, ma’am.” The guard spun and left. The door closed again, followed soon thereafter by the slick hiss of security locks engaging.

  “It appears you are stuck with my whimpering, sniveling self for the time being.”

  The barb hardly earned a glare. “Sit down and be silent. I need to work.”

  “You’re going to continue working on some esoteric research project while your home is under attack from armed intruders?”

  “Yes. If I stopped working upon the eruption of every potential distraction, no work would ever be completed.”

  Incredulous, he shook his head. “At least I know where my blind arrogance came from.” He’d muttered it under his breath, and she pivoted back to the data streams as if she hadn’t heard him. Possibly she hadn’t. Possibly all the stress was tiring her barbed tongue.

  Once he was confident her focus had in fact returned to her work, he palmed the blade he’d brought with him. Security hadn’t checked him for weapons, because what Erevna carried weapons? In truth he wasn’t overly adept at wielding it, but he’d practiced on several pieces of cushioned furniture yesterday.

  He made sure the hilt of the blade was secure in his grip before he quietly approached her, one soft step at a time.

  When he was two meters away, she sensed him drawing near. “Observe the data if your curiosity is so great, but take care that you don’t interfere.”

  “Whatever you say, Primor.” He cocked his arm and plunged the blade into the base of her neck.

  Effective death was instantaneous, for his aim was true and the blade severed the bundle of nerve fibers in her brain stem. Long the puppeteer, she crumpled to the floor like a marionette whose own strings had finally been cut.

  He stepped away from the expanding pool of blood seeping across the floor as the walls shook from the first of what he expected would be many explosions. After scanning the contents of the lab, he chose a chair that both offered an unobstructed view of the door and was situated well clear of the body and its excretions.

  Then he sat down and waited.

  Ten minutes of increasingly louder and more frequent rumbles and booms later, a final explosion blew out the door and much of the wall surrounding it. A dozen soldiers—mostly Human, plus a few presumed anarchs—rushed inside the lab.

  Logiel held his hands in the air and took care not to make any threatening gestures, or even to move from his chair at all. “Don’t shoot. I surrender. Further, I request for you to take me into protective custody. As you can see, I’ve already accomplished the last bit of work for you.”

  36

  SOLUM

  PRAESIDIS HOMEWORLD

  MILKY WAY SECTOR 1

  * * *

  SOLUM EVOKED A SENSATION AKIN TO lingering déjà vu in the wake of a dream.

  It was not Earth. Its city-planet architectural stylings hid the outline of continents that might have otherwise been recognizable and altered the vibrant blue-and-green color palette enough to erase any familiarity in its silhouette.

  Yet if you tilted your head just so and let your gaze unfocus a little, you could almost see Earth. Its echo, its memory.

  Honestly, the sight of it made Caleb long for Seneca. He hadn’t sought out its twin here in Amaranthe; he didn’t know if it was inhabited, or if it bore a name that would have no meaning for him. What he longed for in moments like this was the elusive comfort that came from home, and it couldn’t be found here.

  He squeezed Alex’s hand and returned her wistful smile, the one that said she struggled with much the same sentiments as he did. Then he teleported from the Siyane to the planet below.

  Their visit to Machimis had somewhat prepared Caleb for the visual assault of a Primor homeworld, and indeed Solum and Machimis had a lot in common: buildings and outdoor spaces alike built an unknown distance above the surface, soaring skybridges winding like vines through the rarefied heights of towering structures, endless activity, every meter pruned and buffed to perfection. But where Machimis had been dominated by dull gray metals and an overcast sky, Solum was, if not quite colorful, at least brighter. A notable sprinkling of parks and other green spaces dotted the landscape, and the sun peeked in and out from behind fluffy clouds. Earth clouds.

  He noted all this from a position high above the tallest building in the region, for one reason above all. Virtually everyone here was Praesidis, and even a kilometer above the artificial surface the air felt thick with diati. It seeped out from the people’s skin and clogged the thoroughfares.

  Coming into this, he’d worried about the Primor detecting his presence too soon, but it wasn’t going to be a problem. No, the problem was shaping up to be that the instant he neared anyone here, their diati was apt to rush to join his. And there were people everywhere.

  Lucky break that he could teleport—and fly—for he’d never have managed an infiltration of the Praesidis Command tower beginning at the ground level. There must be a thousand Praesidis in the building. More?

  Nisi might have raised a valid concern over
his ability to absorb so much new diati after all. But there was nothing to be done about it, then or now. He was the only one who was capable of accomplishing this task. He was here, the show was on and the clock was ticking, so he would manage. He would be careful and he would get it done.

  This place is amazing. Objectively.

  He smiled to himself. When the time came, Alex would be taking over for the AEGIS Prevo tasked with surveilling the Primor via sidespace, but while they waited for the other teams to complete their assignments, she was taking a tour of Praesidis Command.

  The building, the city or the planet?

  The city is the planet. I meant the inside of Command, mostly. Anyway, I’ll stop gawking now and head up…and up and up.

  He distracted himself from the buzz of the diati calling to him from every direction by monitoring the mission channels. The Praesidis regenesis labs on Europa and on a space station in LMC weren’t proving to be too much trouble, but the one here could be a bit dicier. For one thing, it was here, inside Praesidis Command.

  He’d considered visiting it first and destroying it with a single gesture, except doing so stood to alert the Primor to his presence critical seconds before he arrived to confront the man. Instead, once the remote labs had been destroyed, one of the AEGIS Prevos would open a wormhole from a staging planet. A Marine would toss a set of remote-detonation bombs through it, the Prevo would close the wormhole, the bombs would be detonated, and the Prevo would confirm via sidespace that they had done their job. The next instant, Caleb would make his move. It was a simple, straightforward plan.

  Field Marshal Bastian (SFS Leonidas)(Praesidis P2): “All Europa formations, advance on target P2 and commence assault.”

  Brigadier Belosca (SFS Pyrgos)(Praesidis P3): “LMC target P3 destruction confirmed.”

  Almost time.

  Alex?

  This place is enormous, but I’ve almost reached the penthouse. Here we go. This seems to be a living area, while this…okay. Wow.

  What?

  Nothing. It’s just…he looks so much like the visuals I’ve seen of your father. Sorry, but be prepared for that. All right, the location is, unsurprisingly, the top floor. He’s in a mostly open room—some kind of workspace—on the southeast side of the building. I can see outside from here, so this is the outermost ring. Directly out from the windows is a space elevator—kind of far away, but it’s the closest one to Praesidis Command. Can you triangulate from those markers?